longtime observer of the cruelty of Sad- dam Hussein, and had spoken publicly for his removal since 1998. He supported the cause of Kurdish independence, and had been to Halabja and seen the injuries caused there by Iraqi chemical weapons; and he was friendly with dissident Iraqis in exile, including Ahmed Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress, which aggres- sively promoted the notion, now widely discounted, that Saddam was poised to become a nuclear power. Mer Septem- ber 11th, and the subsequent defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan (upon which Hitchens addressed the British antiwar left in the pages of the Guardian, "Ha ha ha, and yah, bod'), he had thrown himself into the debate over Iraq, making speeches and writing for Slate. Brandishing the nineteen-thirties slogan "Fascism Means War," he argued that Saddam was some- thing more than another tyrant; though he did not have nuclear weapons, he as- pired to have them; his regime was on the verge of implosion, and better that it should implode under supervision, with the West providing "armed assistance to the imminent Iraqi and Kurdish revolu- tions." Hitchens told me, "The number of us who would have criticized Bush if he hadn't removed Saddam-that's certainly the smallest minority I've ever been a member of" I mentioned the Pentagon meeting. "Wolfowitz was not asking my advice about Iraq-don't run away with that idea," Hitchens said. "He just felt that those who worked for the ousting of Saddam should get on closer terms with each other." According to Kellems, who attended the meeting, "Hitchens said, 'I was trying to signal you' "-through his writing-"and Wolfowitz said, 'I won- dered.'" Hitchens disputes that memory; he does remember asking W olfowitz for reassurances that, in the event of an inva- sion, the United States would protect the Kurds from the Turks. They talked about Rwanda and Bosnia, about the history of genocide and the cost of inaction. Kel- lems, who has since become a friend of Hitchens, described "two giant minds un- leashed in the room. Theywere finishing each other's sentences." According to Hitchens, W olfowitz is a "bleeding heart," and he went on, "There are not many Re- publicans, or Democrats, who lie awake at night worrying about what's happening to the Palestinians, but he does." (Hitch- 154 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 16, 2006 ens has been a decades-long agitator for the Palestinian cause; he co-edited a book on the subject with Edward Said, the late Palestinian -American scholar.) "And Wolfowitz wants America's human- rights ethic to be straight and consistent as far as possible. And if there's an anom- aly he's aware of it." On April 9, 2003, the day the statue of Saddam was pulled down in central Baghdad, Hitchens wrote, "So it turns out that all the slogans of the anti-war movement were right after all. And their demands were just. 'N 0 War on Iraq,' they said-and there wasn't a war on Iraq. In- deed, there was barely a 'war' at all. 'No Blood for Oil,' they cried, and the oil wealth of Iraq has been duly rescued from attempted sabotage with scarcely a drop spilled." That July, Hitchens and a few other reporters flew to Baghdad with Wolfowitz. "It's quite extraordinary to see the way that American soldiers are welcomed," Hitchens told Fox News upon his return. "To see the work that they're doing and not just rolling up these filthy networks ofBaathists and jihadists, but building schools, opening soccer sta- diums, helping people connect to the Internet, there is a really intelligent polit- ical program as well as a very tough mil- . " Itary one. T hree years later, Hitchens is still on Fox News talking about the Iraq war. He has not flinched from his position that the invasion was necessary, nor declined any serious invitation to defend that posi- tion publicly, even as the violence in Iraq has increased, and American opinion has turned against the intervention and the President who launched it. In this role, he has presented himself with an immense test of his rhetorical mettle-one can say that without doubting his sincerity. He often seems to have had more at stake, and certainly more oratorical energy, than any- one in the government. (In recent months, the trope of "Islamic fascism," which Hitchens has used frequently since his 2001 Nation column, has reached the top layers of government-in August, Bush said that the country was" at war with Is- lamic fascists" -and he has had to deny the charge that he is writing Administra- tion speeches.) Today, he always carries with him-like the Kurdistan flag in his lapel-debating points, worn smooth with use: Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Cen- ter attack, took refuge in Iraq; Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam's senior physicist, had centrifuge parts buried in his garden; as late as 2003, Iraqi agents were trying to buy missiles from North Korea; Tariq Aziz, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, of- fered Hitchens's friend Rolf Ekéus, the weapons inspector, a two-and-a-ha1f-mil- lion-dollar bribe. "I feel like Bellows Her- wg, writing crazed letters," Hitchens said, smiling. "The occupation has not turned out as one would have liked, but the main problem is to have underestimated the utter evil of the other side. I wouldn't have believed they could keep up a campaign of murdering people at random." Hitchens asks his opponents this: 'We should have left Iraq the way it was? How- ever I replay the tape, however much I wish things had been done differently, I can't get to that position." He acknowl- edged that his support of the war had caused him some intellectual discomfort. "The most difficult thing is having to de- fend an Administration that isn't defensi- ble," he said. On television and radio, he explained, "you're invited on to defend the Administration's view on something and then someone's invited on to attack it. You don't want to begin by putting dis- tance, because then it looks like you're covering your ass. You take the confron- tation as it actually is. I'm not going to spend a few silky minutes saying, 'You know, I don't really like Bush and his at- titude toward stem cells.' No. Wait. The motion before the house is this: Is this a just and necessary war or is it not?" He went on, "fm open to the prosecu- tion of the Administration, even the im- peachment of some members, for the way they've fucked up the war, and also the way they exploit it domestically. But do not run away with the idea that my telling you this would satisfY any of my critics. Theywant me to immolate myself: and I sincerely be- lieve that for some of them, when they see bad news from Iraq, the reaction is simply 'This will make Hitchens look bad!' I've been trying to avoid solipsism, but I've come to believe there are such people." Hitchens finds support on the right, of course. Peter Wehner, a deputy assistant to the President and the director of the of- fice of strategic initiatives in the White House, invited Hitchens to give a lecture to White House staff a few years ago, and now jokingly addresses him as "Comrade"